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The first direct sea trade route from Europe to Asia was established in 1498 when Vasco da gama of Portugal reached the port of Calicut on the southwestern coast of India.
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Queen Anne 1 granted a royal charter to some London merchants
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The decline of the region started about 150 years before their peak in 1750.
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the British East India Company established its first factory post in Masulipatnam on the Andhra Coast of the Bay of Bengal.
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The EIC was on a mission to expand faster and more efficiently, which led to the company receiving freedom to act as a free entity in 1670.
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India's peak
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It also allowed the EIC to wage war on the states in the Indian region including Siraj ud-Daulah, the Nawab (governor) of Bengal during the Battle of Plassey in 1757.
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9 years later, the EIC fought the Mughal emperor and the Nawab of Oudh to gain control of Bihar and Oudh.
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The Sepoy mutiny of 1857 led to the direct control of the territories previously captured by the EIC by the British crown.
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In 1858, the Government of India Act transferred full governing authority from the EIC to the British government.
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18 years later in 1876, Queen Victoria of the British Empire was named empress of India.
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Over the next 71 years, the British rulers were being challenged left and right by their ruled peoples.
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One such challenge was the Salt March in 1930 which was a nonviolent show of civil disobedience led by Gandhi. They were protesting the British monopoly on salt.